We can help build or transform your governance step by step.
Governance Training & Workshops
We enhance the effectiveness of management teams and board members so that all parties involved in governance are well-prepared, informed, and equipped to contribute positively to the organization's success.
These sessions can be adjusted to be an education session with Q&A, a combined education session with structured discussion, or an interactive workshop with hands-on learning. 45 – 120 minutes (condensed, expanded or combined topics).
Available Sessions:
※ Boardroom ROI: How to Get More Value from Every Board Meeting Boards and management invest significant time, information, and expertise in governance. But that investment does not always produce the board’s highest-value contribution. This session helps leaders identify where value may be leaking through unclear roles, routine agendas, weak materials, and passive or unfocused discussion. Participants leave with a practical lens for improving focus, insight, dialogue, and confidence in the boardroom.
※ Management as Architects of Board Value Tailored for management teams, this workshop emphasizes that management is not a passive participant in governance. Management's choices - what management brings to the board, when it brings it, and how it frames the issue - directly influence how the board spends its time. The presentation provides a practical roadmap for supporting the board through better agendas, board materials and discussion framing, helping management move from preparing board packages to creating the conditions for stronger board contribution.
※ Staying at the Right Altitude: Role Clarity, Grey Zones, and Materiality Boardroom ROI depends on the board spending its time at the right level. When boards drift into topics that don’t benefit from board-level contribution, the costs are real - slowed decision-making, diluted accountability, frustrated leaders and less room for the discussions that move the organization forward. This session helps boards and management distinguish oversight from operations, define materiality in context, navigate grey-zone issues, and avoid drift. It provides a framework for setting shared expectations with management on material preparation and meeting participation.
※ Board-Level Dialogue and Decision Quality Boards add value through the quality of their conversations, not just through formal approvals. This session helps directors and management create board discussions that test assumptions, explore options, weigh trade-offs, and lead to clearer direction or decisions. Participants learn how to move beyond presentation-heavy meetings, avoid premature conclusions, and support discussion that stays focused on the issues where board judgment can add the most value.
※ Building Boardroom ROI Through Trust, Candor, and Constructive Challenge A board-management relationship where trust is strong will support candor, challenge, and early discussion of difficult issues. This session helps directors, management, and governance leaders understand how their behaviours affect whether challenge is useful, whether concerns are surfaced early, and whether difficult questions improve thinking rather than create defensiveness. Participants learn practical ways to encourage constructive challenge, respond productively to tension, and build a boardroom environment where candid discussion supports better oversight, judgment, and decisions.
※ The Hidden Forces Shaping Decisions: Cognitive Biases & Groupthink This topic explores how leadership composition, personalities, operating modes (passive to control) and invisible cognitive biases impact boardroom discussion and judgment. Leaders will learn to identify and mitigate common traps like the framing effect, the sunk cost fallacy, anchoring, and groupthink, ensuring that discussions remain objective and critically sound.
※ Group Dynamics & Inclusive GovernanceThis session describes common operating modes and behaviours that impact group dynamics and discussions. It shares tips and tools for inclusive participation to improve discussions: to prevent airtime imbalance, surface quieter expertise, and ensure all perspectives are considered. It guides leaders to build trust across a mixed table: practical behaviours and norms that strengthen understanding and collaboration, and using proactive protocols to make constructive challenge safe and expected.
※ Making Better Decisions This session gives leaders a tactical framework to work through a complex decision or set of linked decisions where there are multiple options, mixed perspectives, and no clearly superior path forward. It guides the leader to identify the decisions that matter most now, diagnose the real issue rather than only the visible symptoms, build multiple credible pathways, and determine the appropriate path forward.
※ Boardroom Agility and Strategic Foresight This session helps boards move away from rigid, predefined workplans to embrace an agile governance approach. It teaches boards how to develop "sensing" and "pivoting" capabilities, allowing them to shift their operating modes dynamically and respond quickly to emerging risks, innovations, and uncertain future circumstances without delaying critical decisions.
※ Strategic Planning: The 5 Key Areas of Board Review This topic provides a structured framework for how boards could add value in the strategic plan discussion. It breaks the strategic plan into five areas: diagnosing challenges, making choices on direction, identifying key initiatives, aligning resources, and defining evidence and metrics. For each area, the session equips directors with specific, high-level review questions to test management's assumptions, ensure objectives are realistic, and confirm that performance metrics measure actual outcomes and impact rather than just operational effort.
※ Scenario-Based LearningThis workshop provides an interactive learning experience designed to tackle a realistic governance scenario alongside your peers. You’ll engage in a facilitated discussion around uncomfortable boardroom challenges and gain insight into how other leaders would approach similar situations. This bootcamp is designed for leaders who are expected to think critically, respond confidently, and offer sound guidance when it matters most. The scenario is crafted to meet the audience’s preferred topic. Past examples have included difficult boardroom dynamics, crisis events, conflicts of interest, and boardroom oversight gaps.
※ The Chair’s Playbook: Elevating Dialogue and Maximizing "Boardroom ROI" The chair has a direct influence on Boardroom ROI. This session helps chairs design board time, guide management on better materials, protect discussion focus, draw out constructive challenge, manage operational drift, and close discussions with clarity. It gives chairs practical techniques to help the board spend more time where its judgment, oversight, and perspective matter most.
※ Practical Skills for Nominee Directors Designed specifically for leaders serving on Joint Venture (JV) boards who are employees of an owner company, this topic explores the unique challenge of wearing "two hats." It provides practical guidance on balancing the dual expectations of representing an appointing owner while maintaining undivided fiduciary loyalty to the JV. Key areas include navigating complex conflicts of interest, handling confidentiality expectations, and addressing performance disputes between owners. This session can be adjusted for other appointed director environments.